Council mulling bump in spending

TEMECULA  The City Council on Tuesday will consider boosting spending by around $350,000 to cover rising public safety costs, contract obligations for former employees Bob Johnson and Genie Wilson, and a change to the medical plan for union employees.

The city can cover these additional expenses, which are defrayed by some savings and spending reductions, because of higher-than-anticipated revenues in the first half of the fiscal year, which runs from July 1, 2012 to June 30.

In a report to council, the city's finance team reported an increase in revenues over projections of $861,959, with much of that increase attributed to an healthy uptick in sales tax revenue and new development activity in the city, which has pumped almost $400,000 into the Community Development account.

"This is due to an increase in activities for conditional use permits, major modifications and residential product review, increased volume of new single- and multi-family homes in Paseo Del Sol and Redhawk areas, as well as work for various tract map projects that occurred earlier than anticipated," the report states.

The council is scheduled to consider making the adjustments at its regular meeting, which will start at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the council chambers at the Temecula Civic Center, 41000 Main St.

Johnson, the former city manager, and Wilson, the former chief financial officer, were fired last year in a City Hall shakeup that found the former director of the Community Services Department, Aaron Adams, named interim city manager.

According to city documents, the city's finance department is recommending increasing spending to take care of $65,416 for the payout owed to Johnson and $94,440 for Wilson's payout and costs associated with a consultant who studied the city's local vendor preference program.

On public safety, the city is looking to increase spending on its Police Department by $332,057, a boost tied to an estimated 5 percent increase in the Riverside County Sheriff's Department contract rate. The city, like most in Southwest County, contracts with the department for law enforcement services.

The additional expenditures also include $110,880 for a $150 a month boost to the payment to union employees for their health plan.

According to budget documents approved last year, the city planned to sock away about $10.7 million in its main reserves and $4.8 million in its secondary reserves. Those reserves will not be touched as part of the mid-year adjustments, according to the report.

The city gets most of its revenue, around $28 million a year, from sales taxes. The next-highest revenue stream is property taxes at around $8 million.

On the expenditure side of the city's ledgers, spending on public safety through contracts for both police and fire service consumes about half of the city's roughly $60 million budget.

As part of the reorganization of City Hall following the firing of Johnson and Wilson, city leaders adjusted titles for certain positions, reclassified some positions and added a position: a "confidential administrative assistant" position in the Economic Development Department.

The title changes include changing Wilson's old position of "chief financial officer" to "finance director" and "development services director" to "community development director."

One of the positions being reclassified was formerly held by Grant Yates, who left the city to take the city manager's job in Lake Elsinore. Yates' former position of "director of community relations," which put him in the role of a city spokesman, will become "assistant city manager."

Before Johnson and Wilson were fired, which was attributed to a difference of opinion on managerial philosophies by the city, Wilson's finance department reported a $2.7 million "surplus" tied to higher-than-anticipated revenues.

Leadership for the city's 100 or so union employees requested information on that surplus shortly after it was announced, setting the stage for negotiations with the union on a new contract this year.